WI: Napoleon Dismembers Austria

Okay, I know there are some serious Austrian empire fans on the forum but can we all admit how annoyingly traitorous they were during the Napoleonic period?

Time and time again, the Emperor himself had to deal with Austrian attempts at invasions both in Italy, the Rhine and France proper, crushing them every freaking time only for them to tear up peace treaties and go at it again.

Austerlitz anyone?

That being said....

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What if Napoleon after say the battle of Austerlitz, just ddecided to dismember the entire empire? Possibly creating a Duchy of Hungary and/or Bohemia (just like Poland), among many potential others

How would this effect the future fifth and sixth coalitions?

Are there other countries that could be created?

Could Napoleon have conceivably done this?

Let's see. It's not happening in 1805, right after Austerlitz because the Russians are still at it and the Prussians are looming on the horizon.

But! In 1809, Napoleon could be very irked. That's twice the Austrians have frustrated his campaigns (yes, there was no way he was going to successfully invade England. Still, it had to rankle). They have prevented him getting his way in Spain, or at least that's how he sees it. He has been wounded. He has even been defeated at Aspern-Essling. Lannes is dead. Wagram was a bloody mess. So, for a POD, let's assume that Friedrich Staps makes his attempt on his life before the Treaty of Schönbrunn is negotiated and actually wounds him. Furthermore, Staps is rumored to have had been egged on by some Austrian aristocrats, possibly a member of the Imperial family. Napoleon is now good and properly pissed.

So he takes all the Provinces Illyriennes as per OTL from Austria for a start and then some (4, 5, 7 and 17). He takes Venice and the surrounding area for the Kingdom of Italy (19). 10, 13 and 15 go straight to his ally Bavaria. And now Napoleon is really hitting his stride. So he eyes Galicia and the remnants of Silesia and decides that with Austria and Prussia properly humbled, he can afford Russian hostility: 2, 6 and 11 go into Poland's pot. And then, for good measure, he splits Hungary in two and creates an 'independent' kingdom consisting of south 16 plus 18 and 20 which he gives to his brother Louis who gives up his throne in Holland (annexed into the Empire proper a year ahead of schedule).

The remnants of Austria are now encircled to the north by a resurgent Poland, to the east by Hungary, to the west by Bavaria and to the south by Italy and the Empire. It keeps only 1, 8, 9, 12, 14 and maybe 3. Its army is reduced to 100, 000 troops with several French divisions staying to make sure there is no monkey business about it. If there is the slightest whiff of talk with Britain, Napoleon makes it very clear that Bohemia and Moravia will go straight to Saxony and this time he will forget to be nice.

Satisfied with a good afternoon's work, Napoleon goes bride-shopping, since Marie-Louise cannot possibly be of use to him (except as a potential mother of his children), considering the utter ruin of the Hapsburg-Lorraine, before planning his next strike in Spain.

It's not very likely. But unless Austria is dismembered until it's no bigger than it was before the Renaissance, it will always be a stumbling block to Napoleon on the continent. Unless it's given the Prussian treatment, it will rise again (and even then, Prussia managed to throw off the yoke after the disaster that was the Russian campaign).

Edit: also, except for 1812 and the lead-up to Leipzig the next year, I would not say that Austria was traitorous, per se. It just so happened that its interests kept clashing with France's and Napoleon's.

Power wise, this would cripple Austria greatly.

After Austerlitz, with many potential soldiers dead from Austria proper, if Napoleon splits the empire, then Austria's ability to wage a war has been severely crippled, due to their inability to raise soldiers from the rest of their (now non-existent) empire.

If everything else goes as OTL, I think that Austria would only have some of their territories returned (Bohemia, the Balkan territories, possibly Hungary).

So this gets super interesting

Does Napoleon still lose? Is he capable of reaching a better accommodation with the Russians?

If he does lose, does the congress of Vienna restore Austria, maybe in a much reduced form?

I suspect that this triggers an earlier break with Russia, who may well threaten to intervene. And any Hungarian king he sets up will have little to no legitimacy.

RousseauX said:

So this gets super interesting

Does Napoleon still lose? Is he capable of reaching a better accommodation with the Russians?

If he does lose, does the congress of Vienna restore Austria, maybe in a much reduced form?

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I think this may be my best PoD yet

If Napoleon plays his cards right, many of these territories will be legitimately supportive of the new regines.

Namely, he shouldn't appoint too many of his relatives to the assorted thrones (Hungary, Croatia, etc). They seldom inspire confidence or affection.

I'm not sure how Russia would react. Yes, Austria was an ally of Russia in these wars but, on most occasions, Austria was an enemy, especially in the Balkans.

With Austria out, Russia's ambitions have no obstacle. The Ottoman is wide open for Russian expansion.

Hey, Louis was beloved by his Dutch subjects. He actually put them first ahead of his own brother. Said brother did not find the joke very funny. With him as King of Hungary, I give him a year tops before he is considered almost a native even by the most hide-bound Magyar noble.

I guess if he went OTL landlocking scheme and annexed the coastal territories, how plausible would it be for Nap to just incorporate the Austrian bits into the confederation of the Rhine while setting up the other major parts as tributary duchies?

I wonder if even Napoleon can pull it off for long.

I could easily see a pro-Habsburg rearrangement as soon as things go wrong (say, in Russia), with the various regions mostly reintegrating into one.

It won't be able to be a quite unitary state anytime soon, but that might even prove a blessing in disguise (allowing Austria to respond more flexibly to various nationalistic shifts).

Unless it somehow makes Napoleon able to decisively win an offensive against Russia, I expect he'll still lose eventually, and any Vienna-like agreement will still restore Austria (after all, Prussia was restored and then some, too).

Austrophile here, the slightest chance/smallest hint of significant defeat of Napoleon (say Russia happens again) will have the same result but I don't think the Habsburgs will be less forgiving of the estates that took their territories land would be out for vengeance a la Prussia with Saxony at the Congress of Vienna (I don't think the other powers would be less forgiving of those estates either).

That is one flaw Napoleon had, he always wanted to be reconized by the various crowns as one of them. If he dismember Austria and reach an agreement whit Russia on the Balkan Russia might be too busy fighting the Ottoman to care about another coalition. And without Austrian armies the coalition would have less teeths as well.

Benevolence said:

Austrophile here, the slightest chance/smallest hint of significant defeat of Napoleon (say Russia happens again) will have the same result but I don't think the Habsburgs will be less forgiving of the estates that took their territories land would be out for vengeance a la Prussia with Saxony at the Congress of Vienna (I don't think the other powers would be less forgiving of those estates either).

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That's really interesting.

What if he did this, and allowed Russia and the Kingdom of Prussia to take some key territories?

Might this break the potential for future coalitions?

It seems like it would, considering how as other have said, Russia would now have a free hand in the Balkans and Prussia would be able to bring some austro-germanic territories into its realm

That plus a duchy of Bohemia and Hungry?

I have a hard time thinking a Fifth Coalition would be formed at all.

Would the Russians and Prussians get too busy with dismembering the remainder of Austria to join against Napoleon's other ventures, or would that get dealt with later?

The proposed addition of Venice to the Italian kingdom might in fact lead to an earlier unification of Italy because I can't really see the Habsbourg getting the area back if they've got so much to reclaim and reunite : Italian nationalism would be too much of a pain to fight for a nation already trying to get back its power in Hungary and the Balkans... And the threat would be seen to come from the Balkans, not Italy which would be seen as "worries for later", a later that never comes. So the Vienna congress makes an independant kingdom of Lombardy (including Parma and southern Modena) and an independant Duchy of Venice (with northern Modena), and gives Lucca to Tuscany so as to have less micro-states. Thus we have three main players in the North, all with their own coastal area for trade, all unhappy with their borders, and all with more ressources to start an earlier industrialization, especially Lombardy and Venice. Of course Venice has to keep a somewhat stronger military to deter Austria, but it's still able to develop.
Could it mean earlier italian attempts at colonizing Tunisia and/or Lybia, or heavier intervention in the Greek independance war leading to a larger Greece in 1830 ? Or a war between Egypt and Venice for Crete ? Ah, so many possibilities...

Does anyone have any guesses on the negative effects such a diplomatic move might have for Napoleon circa 1805 or 1809?

Nap was never about sharing power. He's NOT strengthening Prussia or Russia by allowing them anything that improves their situation. He wants to weaken all others, while making France stronger. Russia was an 'ally' (loose term) for as long as Nap could hold them under his thumb. when he couldn't hold them any more, they went from ally to enemy.

France vs Russia is absolutely happening, no matter what (with the same key players involved). There isn't a chance in hades that Nap allows Russia to strengthen itself with spoils of Austria dismemberment. And that's one of the reasons Nap allowed Austria to remain. dismemberment is detrimental to Nap's aims. but he also couldn't figure out how to reduce them enough to eliminate the threat while allowing them to be strong enough to serve his goals.

GlobalHumanism said:

Does anyone have any guesses on the negative effects such a diplomatic move might have for Napoleon circa 1805 or 1809?

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Hi. I'm new here, just bringing over my thoughts. Hi. I'm thinking if Austria was starving after WWI I I'm guessing they would be here too. That's not going to make Napoleon very popular, even in Prussia. And if I was Russia, I'd be looking at the Baltics and the Ukraine and building up a counter to the Grande Armee.

unprincipled peter said:

Nap was never about sharing power. He's NOT strengthening Prussia or Russia by allowing them anything that improves their situation. He wants to weaken all others, while making France stronger. Russia was an 'ally' (loose term) for as long as Nap could hold them under his thumb. when he couldn't hold them any more, they went from ally to enemy.

France vs Russia is absolutely happening, no matter what (with the same key players involved). There isn't a chance in hades that Nap allows Russia to strengthen itself with spoils of Austria dismemberment. And that's one of the reasons Nap allowed Austria to remain. dismemberment is detrimental to Nap's aims. but he also couldn't figure out how to reduce them enough to eliminate the threat while allowing them to be strong enough to serve his goals.

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Partly agree.

Metternich very skilfully distorted the truth. The truth was that Austria had really become ally with napoleonic France and that it did not intend to change sides again, unless an enormous surprise changed the balance of powers in such a way that it would be dangerous not changing sides.

That'a what happened with the unforeseen disaster of the russian campaign.

In 1813 it was not at least Austria weighing in on the Allied side that had Napoleon loose. IMHO this was the "point of no return" for Napoleon's power.

In that light a "no Austria" is interesting, even if if the disaster of Russia still has happened.

OTOH I could also see the Habsburgs reclaim their throne once/if 1812 happens as OTL. This might actually give the Habsburgs an advantage in the coming "battle over the German soul". In OTL Prussia cleverly understood to never let anybody forget about the at times cordial relations between the Habsburgs and Napoleon.